L. Cultural Policy and Scientific Cooperation

A comprehensive process of reforming and modernising Austria's cultural activities abroad was inaugurated in March 2001. Administrative costs are being reduced in favour of project work by artists, scientists and academics. With around 4,000 projects annually around the world these cultural activities can make a positive contribution to the decisive aspects of Austria's foreign policy - the European Union and its enlargement, security and stability in Europe, and Austria's position within the framework of comprehensive global competition. The following concrete measures were taken to strengthen this international presence:

· The cultural institutions abroad were given a corporate identity as Austrian Cultural Forums with a common design and logo. A new forum was opened in Belgrade, bringing the total to 28: Belgrade, Berlin, Berne, Bratislava, Brussels, Budapest, Bucharest, Cairo (from 2002), Cracow, Istanbul, Kiev, Ljubljana, London, Madrid, Mexico (from 2002), Milan, Moscow, New York, Ottawa, Paris, Prague, Rome, Teheran, Tel Aviv, Tokyo, Warsaw, Washington and Zagreb.

· From 2002 the individual Forums will have annual budgets, to enable them to plan ahead and undertake long-term project work. They and the other Austrian representative institutions will have decentralised powers of financial decision for cultural projects up to a limit of €1,500.

· The Forums will offer training opportunities for voluntary project workers as well as those seconded under scholarships from public institutions.

· The central administration of Austria's cultural activities abroad has been strengthened by a reorganisation of the cultural policy section within the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Within the framework of the Regional Partnership Austria's cultural activities have been coordinated with those of the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia under the platform Central Europe - Culture. There will be joint use of the existing infrastructure in other countries as well as joint projects to present the cultural region Central Europe as a contribution to the EU enlargement process. On 10 December the initiative was opened with a Central Europe One gala evening in Brussels.

Austria's cultural policy focuses particularly on the Central and Eastern European reform countries, the European Union and the United States. In 2001 this focus was broadened to encompass global cultural centres (New York, London, Paris, Rome, Tokyo, Madrid, Moscow and Berlin) and cultural neighbours with which Austria has historic links - traditionally countries in Central Europe and the Balkans, but also Turkey and Israel. Enhanced cultural activity in South-Eastern Europe will also contribute to stabilising the region, to the build-up of civil societies and the prevention of conflicts. A longer-term goal is an extension of cultural activities to Austria's development cooperation partners in other continents. The following main themes have emerged in connection with the transmission of information on Austria's history and self-perception over the next few years:

· The future of Europe and the "European values".
· Respected tradition as a starting point for innovation.
· Facing up to Austria's history in the 20th century.
· Culture for enlargement - Austria as partner of its Central and Eastern European neighbours.
· Culture as a contribution to the stability of South-Eastern Europe.
· Culture for development - a dialogue with partners in the Third World.

There will a comprehensive presentation of Austrian creative achievement in the literature and music of the 20th century and in the humanities generally. The new Cultural Forum in New York was due to open in April 2002 with a programme series entitled Transforming Modernity. The unpractical and cost-intensive Cultural Institute in Paris was closed, but preparations were well advanced for the opening of a new Cultural Forum in February 2002.

Musical Projects

The 50th anniversary of the death of the composer Arnold Schönberg was the occasion for a series of lectures, symposia and exhibitions in Athens, Moscow, Madrid and elsewhere. Support was given to musical projects with classical content, primarily outside Europe, because Austria's image as a land of music can be used to awaken interest in other branches of the arts and in innovative creation. Young soloists and ensembles were also supported, and jazz, cross-over music and projects with Austrian DJs also increased in importance. The coupling of master classes with concert performances can be expected to have long-term effects, since they convey Austrian technique, style and interpretations to practising musicians. Courses by the Vienna Conservatory in Malta revived a traditional cooperation with the music school there.

Theatrical and Literary Projects

Contemporary Austrian drama and Viennese theatre around 1900 remain much in demand internationally, the most popular works being those by Thomas Bernhard and Arthur Schnitzler. Numerous performances and related events were organised to celebrate Nestroy Year 2001. Many young Austrian directors were invited to hold guest productions, especially in Central and Eastern Europe. There was an upsurge of invitations to arrange guest performances by young Austrian dancers and choreographers, who also won a number of prizes at international festivals from Cairo to Kalisz in Poland and Vitebsk in Belarus.

Readings by authors and presentations of new literary works were held in all of the target regions. Publishers in the English and French speaking regions as well as in Russia, Ukraine, Bulgaria and Korea brought out books by Austrian authors, with financial support from the Austrian Government and publicity through the English-language trade magazine "New Books in German". Support is also provided for translations of works by living Austrian authors, and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs provides guarantees of purchase and distributes the books to libraries, schools and other educational establishments abroad. Authors and publishers were assisted to attend international book fairs and literary festivals. Austria was the theme country at the international book fair for children and young people in Luxembourg, and successfully organised a number of related events there.

Multidisciplinary festivals were again held in England and Warsaw. In London the festival "Vienna-Berlin -London - The Trails of Creativity 1918-1938" dealt with intellectual and cultural migration during the interwar period as well as cultural relations between the three cities. The Cultural Forum in Warsaw held a festival from October 2001 till January 2002 on Vienna in Warsaw, the highlight of which was the largest exhibition of contemporary Austrian art to be shown abroad in 2001.

The Fine Arts

Once again the emphasis here was on the presentation of graphic arts of the 20th century. There remains considerable international interest in the Viennese "fin de siècle". In Paris there was an exhibition of works by Egon Schiele, Oskar Kokoschka, Herbert Boeckl and Richard Gerstl. Modern Austrian architecture and design were presented at numerous exhibitions in global cultural centres like London, New York, Tokyo and Paris. The life and work of the architect Clemens Holzmeister was celebrated in an exhibition in the parliament building in Ankara. Other notable exhibitions of modern art were held in China, Ireland and the United States. The cultural forums in London, Rome and Warsaw showed dialogue projects with participation by Austrian and local artists. Three new travelling exhibitions went on tour in 2001: Viennese Architecture around 1900, on modern Jewish Vienna, and Ödön von Horvath.

Films and Audio-Visual Media

The year 2001 was a particularly successful one for Austrian films. Michael Haneke's "Die Klavierspielerin" (The Pianist) was awarded the Grand Prix at the 54th Cannes Festival and was seen by over a million viewers in that year. Jessica Hausner's "Lovely Rita" and Ruth Mader's "Null Defizit" were also successful presentations in Cannes. Other prizewinning producers were Valeska Grisebach with "Mein Stern" (Turin and Berlin) and Ulrich Seidl for "Hundstage" (Venice). Of the documentaries, Nikolaus Geyrhalter's "Elsewhere" was awarded a special prize in Amsterdam, and Robert Dornhelm's film of the Anne Frank story was also successful. The short film "Copy Shop" by Virgil Widrich won a number of prizes worldwide. The Ministry for Foreign Affairs supported the Austrian presence at these international film festivals.

Austrian film weeks were held in Argentina, Brazil, Latvia, Poland, Turkey and Yugoslavia, and Austria participated in film events organised by the European Union in 31 countries. Austria also participated in the Council of Europe's Eurimages fund for financing European film co-productions. The EU media programme also provides funds for film coproductions, training and distribution. Numerous titles were added to the Ministry's own film library in 2001 to meet the intensive demand abroad for Austrian film material, especially from universities.

International Youth Cooperation

On the basis of an idea by Simon Wiesenthal the Ministry for Foreign Affairs initiated an international youth project on tolerance and conflict resolution. At a seminar in Vienna during April some 50 young people from 16 mainly South-Eastern European countries developed methods and actions to further tolerance, human rights and non-violent conflict resolution in daily life. The results were given a public presentation. Simon Wiesenthal sent a personal message to the youths who attended.

International Sport

Austria and Switzerland entered a joint candidature to hold the European football championship competition in 2008. In view of the large number of competitors the Austrian embassies in the FIFA member countries conducted joint initiatives with the Swiss embassies to promote this candidacy. A final decision will be taken in the autumn of 2003.

Cultural Promotion

Financial support is given to individual projects of relevance to foreign policy or foreign cultural policy if they could not have been held without the Foreign Ministry's participation. The expenditure for this purpose in 2001 was €392,430 for 72 individual projects.

Subsidies were provided for German language tuition in the historic Austrian settlements in Brazil and Peru, for St. George's College in Istanbul, and for cultural activities by the German-speaking minorities in Slovenia, Croatia and Romania. Support was given to a forum of Catholic youth workers from Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia; projects in connection with the former Mauthausen concentration camp, witnesses to the 1938 Kristallnacht, and the Institute for the History of the Jews in Austria; to the European Academy of Sciences and Arts for a youth project in the Balkans; a seminar on the protection of military cultural property; a project to preserve and document the archive of Emperor Maximilian of Mexico; and several restoration projects.

Academic Activities

Symposia, workshops and lectures on Austria-related themes are organised worldwide on subjects ranging from speech philosophy to Austrian literature, town planning, constitutional law, architecture, history and cultural policy. Cooperation in the natural sciences usually takes place directly between the relevant Austrian and foreign institutions, but opportunities are taken to promote knowledge of Austrian scientific achievements and to establish appropriate contacts through events like the now traditional annual Schrödinger Lectures in the United Kingdom and Ireland. Academic and cultural events on the theme of intensified neighbourly relations were held in Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic. In autumn a conference was held in Prague on the Bohemian logician and theologian Bernhard Bolzano, and a memorial room was opened.

Austrian Studies Abroad

Centres or chairs of Austrian studies in foreign universities present Austrian culture, economy and politics in the host countries as well as other European themes relating to Austria. They also help to cement cooperation between the Austrian institutions and the international scientific and cultural community. They include, amongst many others, the Chair of Central European Studies with Special Reference to Austria at the University of Leyden; the Canadian Center for Austrian and Central European Studies at the University of Alberta; the Centre for Research on Robert Musil at Saarbrücken University; the Center for Austrian Studies at the University of Minnesota; the Cardinal König Chair at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; the Visiting Austrian Professorship at Stanford University; and the Schumpeter Chair at Harvard University and the Center for Austrian Culture and Commerce at the University of New Orleans.

Austrian Libraries

It is more than ten years since the first Austrian libraries were established in Central and Eastern Europe, since when the concept of making Austrian literature and information on Austrian history and culture available to a broad public, especially in the university cities of the reform countries, has proved highly successful. The number of libraries rose to 47 in 2001 with the opening of new institutions in Belgrade, Bitola (Macedonia) and Riga.

Basic information on their structure, aims and networking can be obtained from a joint website at www.oesterreich-bibliotheken.at. Each library has a stock of around 5,000 books as well as periodicals and audio-visual material, including publications on the European Union. The host organisations provide the infrastructure and staff, who are given training in Austria along with academics and graduate students who work in close contact with the libraries. A large number of the libraries are also venues for lectures, readings, exhibitions, and musical and film evenings, especially in locations where there are no Austrian embassies or cultural forums. Apart from the Austrian libraries, the Ministry donates stocks of books to departments of German in universities around the world.

Language Courses

Since 1997 the German language courses established by the Foreign Ministry in Bratislava, Brno (new in 2001), Budapest, Cracow, Milan and Warsaw have been run by the Österreich Institut GmbH, which is owned by the Republic of Austria represented by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The German courses in Teheran continue to be operated directly by the Ministry. The Institute's activities include the compilation of a unified curriculum for all its branches, the implementation of a concept for the further training of teachers of German as a foreign language, the development of teaching material, and the publication of the quarterly magazine "Österreich Spiegel".

Austrian Lecturers and Teachers Abroad

In 2001 a total of 140 Austrian lecturers taught German language and literature at university level in 26 countries in Asia, Europe and Latin America as well as Australia. There are Austrian schools in Budapest, Guatemala, Istanbul and Prague, and Austrian teachers are in service in other German-language schools in all the other continents for periods of up to eight years. At the end of 2001 there were 178 Austrian teachers serving in schools in other countries. In addition, teachers are seconded to the nine bilingual schools in Slovakia (2), the Czech Republic (2) and Hungary (5). Another 51 Austrian teachers of mathematics and natural sciences were working in schools in New York City. Austrian educational advisers assist with the organisation and reform of teaching and teacher training in Belgrade, Bratislava, Brno, Bucharest, Budapest, St. Petersburg, Sarajevo, Skopje, Sofia, Tirana and Zagreb.

Scholarships and University Cooperation

The Austrian Academic Exchange Service (ÖAD) administers the award of Austrian scholarships to foreign students. The Austrian universities have the highest proportion of foreign students in Europe at 12.5 per cent for academic and 38.2 per cent for artistic subjects. More than half of the foreign students come from EU countries, mainly Germany and Italy. Academic mobility has been considerably simplified by the introduction of the European Credit Transfer System (ECTS). More than a quarter of all Austrian graduates have spent relevant periods of study abroad, the most popular non-European destination being the United States. The Central European Exchange Programme for University Studies (CEEPUS), with participation by Austria, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia, has been extended until 2004 at least. More than 100 Austrians annually spend periods of study and research in the US on scholarships from the Fulbright Program.

The European Union

The EU has a role to play in cultural affairs under the terms of the 1993 Maastricht Treaty. The member states retain their fundamental responsibility in this field under the principle of subsidiarity, while the Union provides support for those activities with a European dimension. This is done through the five-year (2000-2004) Culture 2000 framework programme. In 2001 Austria submitted 15 one-year projects, 6 of which were awarded EU financial support. Austrian institutions were involved as participants in six further projects, and a translation project was also accepted for support. Of the 8 multi-annual projects submitted, one was awarded financial support, but Austrians are also involved as joint participants in a further 7 projects. The total EU contribution to Austrian project organisers is €1.66m.

The meeting of EU ministers for culture on 5 November inter alia adopted a resolution on the role of culture in the development of the Union which underlines the importance of respect for and promotion of the diversity of cultures in Europe. Support was agreed for the European film industry to enable it to hold its own against US competition. An informal meeting in December agreed on the necessity of continuing Culture 2000 beyond 2004. It also adopted an Austrian proposal that support be given to projects with multicultural contents in view of the current migratory streams in the continent. The EU has allocated a total of €3,000m for projects under the Socrates II and Leonardo II educational programmes, which are also open to the candidate countries in central and Eastern Europe. More than a quarter of this sum is for school and adult education. The Tempus programme for the tertiary sector is also open to the CEE countries that are not EU candidates (Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia and Croatia) as well as the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States.

Multilateral Scientific and Technical Cooperation

Austria is a member of a whole range of international organisations for scientific cooperation. These include the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST), the European Council for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva and the European Space Agency (ESA) in Paris. Austria advocated that the East and South-East European states should participate fully in COST activities, and strongly supported the admission of Yugoslavia. Austria's aim is to make the fullest use of COST's role for the Common European Research Area. Austria participates in 90 per cent of all COST activities, the highest rate of participation of all European research programmes.

Austria is fully committed to the strategy of providing Europe with independent satellite navigation and earth observation systems, and is working on the planning of the respective Galileo and GMES projects. Austria is represented on the EU/ESA Joint Space Advisory Group. It is also a member of the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites (EUMETSAT), the European Molecular Biology Conference (EMBC), the European Institute for Medium-Term Weather Forecasting and the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg near Vienna. Such cooperation enables the smaller countries like Austria to participate in major large-scale research projects that they could not undertake independently.

One of the main issues within the EUREKA high technology initiative in 2001 was its role in the planned EU Common European Research Area. Since the founding of EUREKA in 1985, Austrian partners have participated in around 13 per cent of the approximately 2,000 projects that have been submitted. This corresponds to a financial volume of €218m. Some 80 per cent of the Austrian project participants are small and medium sized firms. In 2001 Austrian project participation to a value of €15m was subsidised by up to 50 per cent from public funds. There were also 13 project participations in the major cluster projects MEDEA+ (microelectronics), ITEA (software) and SCARE (avoidance of electronic waste) to a value of €24m.

Cultural Agreements

The bilateral cultural agreement with Slovenia was signed in Ljubljana on 30 April and ratified by the Austrian Parliament in July. By the end of the year it had also been passed by the Foreign Policy Committee of the Slovene State Assembly. The agreement, which is similar to those concluded with Austria's other neighbours Italy, Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic, includes provisions in favour of the Slovene ethnic minority in Austria and the German-speaking minority in Slovenia. The bilateral agreement with China was signed in Vienna on 30 November during a visit by Chinese Minister for Cultural Affairs Sun Jiazheng. On the basis of existing cultural agreements, talks were held with the three linguistic regions of Belgium, and also with Slovakia, Croatia, Romania and Hungary, to draw up programmes of work extending over several years.